Press

While we’re primarily focused on the Twin Cities innovation economy, we also have our eyes on all of the startup and tech activity happening throughout the entire Midwest. Here are the major tech fundings, acquisitions, mergers, moves and IPOs that went down in the region in August. See all Midwest Reports here.

8/1: Detroit-based Bloomscape, a direct-to-consumer plant company, raised a $7.5 million Series A from Revolution Ventures, with participation from Endeavor.

8/2: – Columbus-based ORIS Intelligence, a provider of insights for manufacturers, was acquired by market intelligence platform PriceSpider. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

8/6: Chicago-based LanzaTech, a maker of carbon recycling technology, raised a $72 million Series E from Novo Holdings.

8/6: Chicago-based Dough, a commission-free online broker, raised $20 million in capital from Tastytrade.

8/7: Kansas City-based C2FO, an online marketplace for working capital, raised $200 million from the SoftBank Vision Fund, with participation from return backers Temasek and Union Square Ventures.

8/9: Ann Arbor-based AI startup Voxel51 raised $2 million in seed funding from eLab Ventures.

8/12: Chicago-based Hazel Technologies, a biotech startup

Detroit-based e-commerce and delivery company Bloomscape has secured $7.5 million in Series A funding, according to company database Crunchbase, topping the city’s recent funding headlines. The cash infusion was announced Aug.1 and led by Revolution.

According to its Crunchbase profile, “Bloomscape makes buying plants easy by delivering ready-to-go plants to its customer’s door. Bloomscape is a DTC company with a mission to drastically improve the entire plant-buying and -care experience in every area of the home and garden.”

The 2-year-old startup has raised two previous funding rounds, including a seed round earlier this year.

The round brings total funding raised by Detroit companies in commerce and shopping over the past 90 days to $117 million. The local commerce and shopping industry has seen six funding rounds over the past year, capturing a total of $163 million in venture funding.

In other local funding news, enterprise software

Ann Arbor’s HT Mobile Apps has acquired Hip Pocket, a platform that uses social influence and personalized consultation to generate qualified mortgage and retirement leads. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Ann Arbor’s HT Mobile Apps has acquired Hip Pocket, a platform that uses social influence and personalized consultation to generate qualified mortgage and retirement leads. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“HTMA was created from a passion for technology and financial literacy,” says Kathleen Craig, founder, and CEO of HT Mobile Apps. “Hip Pocket is a great complement to our range of products. Each of our products empowers customers to grow their knowledge of personal finances while also helping financial institutions provide better digital offerings and develop more meaningful relationships with their customers.”

Hip Pocket, based in Nebraska, was launched in 2013 and has since worked with banks and credit unions to compare mortgage rates and retirement accounts to customers’ peers, allowing the institutions to consider finances in a personal way. The platform is designed to find customers better deals while also helping them make informed financial decisions.

HTMA is a fintech company that serves banks and credit unions across the country, introducing them to new services for attracting and retaining customers.

LANSING, Mich. — The Lansing region and Michigan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem was well represented at the Aug. 13 Manu-Tech Night pitch competition hosted by Lean Rocket Labs in Jackson, Michigan. Top players in the Michigan startup accelerator ecosystem including PROTO Accelerator, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), 100k Ideas, Ann Arbor SPARK and Centrepolis/LTU were in attendance to evaluate high-tech manufacturing startups as they pitched their products in the hopes of securing additional funding. Among the night’s winners was a 2018 graduate of LEAP’s PROTO Accelerator physical products program, Black Pine Engineering.

Black Pine Engineering is a manufacturer of cutting-edge compressor engines which includes several innovations allowing for the production of a smaller, more efficient and lightweight turbine. Black Pine took second place at Manu-Tech Night as the night’s People’s Choice award winner, competing against four additional startups.

Black Pine received investment and comprehensive business guidance in 2018 through the PROTO Products program to further develop and market their innovative turbine compressor technology. In addition, PROTO president Tony Willis assisted Black Pine CEO Zach Hoyle in fine-tuning his pitch for the recent Manu-Tech pitch night.

“LEAP’s PROTO Accelerator products program allowed us to iterate and test our prototype and prepare to enter the market with a solid product,” said Zach Hoyle, CEO of Black Pine. “Even after the program

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Aug. 22, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ONL Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies for protecting the vision of patients with retinal disease, today announced it recently raised $3 million in a convertible note financing. Participation in the financing was a balance of current investors, ONL management, and new investors. Current investors included Invest Michigan, the University of Michigan’s Michigan Investment in New Technology Startups (MINTS) program, Invest Michigan, the Biosciences Research & Commercialization Center, and the Capital Community Angels. The largest new investor in the company is InFocus Capital Partners, a venture capital firm focused on unique investments in the ophthalmology market.

“ONL Therapeutics is developing first-in-class therapeutics to protect the vision of patients with retinal disease,” commented David Esposito, CEO of ONL Therapeutics. “We are grateful to our new and existing investors, who recognize the opportunity we have to make a meaningful difference in the lives of patients. The addition of InFocus Capital Partners to our list of investors will help us advance our efforts in the clinic and accelerate the raising of additional capital to accomplish our goals.”

ONL Therapeutics is currently preparing its lead compound ONL1204 for a Phase I study in retinal detachment to be conducted in Australia later this year. The company is

DETROIT—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Autobooks is a small business payment and accounting platform integrated within a financial institution’s digital banking experience. Today, the company announced that it has been recognized as a finalist for the inaugural Finovate Awards along with ChoiceOne Bank, a subsidiary of ChoiceOne Financial Services, Inc. (OTCBB: COFS).

.@Autobooks and @ChoiceOneBank recognized as finalists for @Finovate’s inaugural award in the SMB/SME Banking category.

Autobooks and ChoiceOne have been recognized in the Best SMB/SME Banking Solution category, given to a financial institution that excels at engaging with small and medium-sized businesses by offering quality products and an exceptional digital experience. By partnering with Autobooks, ChoiceOne Bank has simplified the way small businesses get paid and manage finances within its existing digital banking channels. The bank has become a one-stop digital destination for the rapidly evolving small business segment by driving new account openings, increasing deposits from current SMB clients, and capturing additional fee income.

ChoiceOne has a strong focus on small business banking and supports these customers with mobile banking and deposits, innovative payroll

ANN ARBOR, MI — ONL Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies for preserving vision in a range of retinal diseases, today announced a key leadership appointment as part of its evolution into a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company. David A. Esposito has been appointed chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors, bringing with him a wealth of leadership experience in building life science companies. The appointment of a new CEO is designed to further supplement ONL’s leadership as it continues to advance its innovative retinal neuroprotection technology.

“David is an experienced healthcare executive and combat veteran with a proven track record of building successful life science companies,” said Mark Hooper, Chairman of the Board of ONL Therapeutics. “As ONL continues to prepare for first-in-human clinical trials, David will help accelerate the operating plan for the company. We also want to thank Dr. David Zacks for his leadership as interim CEO during this transition.”

Mr. Esposito has more than twenty-five years of healthcare leadership experience. Most recently, he was the CEO of Armune BioScience, Inc. (cancer diagnostics). In December of 2017, Armune BioScience sold a portfolio of protein biomarkers to Exact Sciences, Inc. (EXAS). Mr. Esposito started his healthcare career with Merck & Co. Inc. as a

Canton Township-based Fusion Coolant Systems Inc., a spinoff from the University of Michigan that uses supercooled carbon dioxide to lubricate cutting tools used in manufacturing, has wasted no time putting a funding round of $8 million it raised last October to good use.

Fusion Coolant uses the liquid CO2 to replace the traditional mix of water and oil used to cool industrial cutting tools, hitting the surface of the tool at between minus-20 and minus-60 degrees Celsius.

The CO2 speeds up machining time, increases tool longevity, sharply reduces the cost of cleaning up waste created by the oil and water and the associated health and environmental risks and can be used in a wider range of manufacturing, including implantable medical devices where oil is a contaminant.

In March, the company hired Brian Ahlborn as its full-time president and CEO. Ahlborn has more than 30 years in the automotive sector and was recruited from Linamar Corp., a company based in Guelph, Ontario, that had $7.6 billion in revenue last year. Positions he held there included president of its European Group and of the U.S./Canada Group. Previously he served as CEO of Los Angeles-based Transonic Combustion Inc., and as president of Livonia-based McLaren Performance Technologies.

Fusion Coolant doubled its square footage in Canton in December from 4,200 square feet to 8,400 square feet and will soon open a new customer center there to demonstrate its technology. The center will triple the company’s machining capacity.

The company will open an office in Europe in the

When Stephen Gunther, M.D., of Charlottesville, VA, began to dream up a design for a revolutionary new glenoid, even he didn’t foresee how successful his unique design could be in solving total shoulder arthroplasty’s number one problem, glenoid loosening.

It’s now been nearly a decade since his first InSet Glenoid designs were implanted and Dr. Gunther was able to follow-up with 21 of the 24 patients. He recently wrote a paper detailing the long-term results of his InSet Glenoid implant which were recently published in the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery (JSES), a peer-reviewed publication for eight leading specialty medical organizations.

We recently sat down with Dr. Gunther to discuss his paper and the implications of his results for total shoulder arthroplasty.

David Blue: Congratulations on publishing your paper.

Dr. Gunther: Yes, thank you. It required an incredible amount of work but was absolutely worth it. In fact, this InSet Glenoid project has been my life’s work for the last 15 years and it’s been so rewarding to see my efforts coming to fruition in the published results.

David Blue: Tell us about your motivation. Was there a defining moment for you in your journey creating the InSet Glenoid?

Dr. Gunther: Actually, there was. A long time ago, I was at UCSF performing a revision surgery that involved a broken screw from a bone graft. This ended up being a six-hour case and four of those hours were spent removing another surgeon’s broken screw from

Grand Rapids, MI — Tetra Discovery Partners, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, today announced the initiation of a Phase 2 clinical trial (PICASSO AD) of BPN14770 in patients diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s disease (AD). BPN14770, a novel agent that selectively inhibits phosphodiesterase-4D (PDE4D), is designed to enhance early and late stages of memory formation and to potentially improve cognition and memory in central nervous system (CNS) disorders including AD.

“Recent estimates cite AD as the 6th leading cause of death in the United States, and the only one with no effective means to prevent, cure, or slow its progression. This disease has an overwhelming impact not only on those diagnosed with the condition, but on families, caregivers, and the health care system,” said Paul Stephen Aisen, M.D., Professor of Neurology; Director, Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC). “We are excited to see agents with novel mechanisms of action expand into a patient population in need of new treatments aimed at improving the devastating symptoms of the disease.”

The PICASSO AD trial is a three-month randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 study that will be conducted at up to 60 sites across the United States. The trial will enroll approximately 255 patients, ages 55-85, with a clinical diagnosis of early Alzheimer’s

Genomenon Inc., the leading genomic search company, today announced that Bio-IT World has awarded them Best of Show for the Mastermind Genomic Search Engine. Mastermind was one of 31 products considered for this prestigious award at last week’s Bio-IT World Conference & Expo in Boston.

Bio-IT World’s Best of Show Awards Program recognizes the best of the innovative product solutions for the life sciences industry, as judged by a panel of experts from academia, industry, pharma and biotech. Winners are judged based on the products’ technical merit, functionality, innovation, and in-person presentations to the judges at the show. During the April 18th awards ceremony, Mastermind was applauded as a product that was unique, important to the industry, and offered a compelling return on investment.

“The judges believe Mastermind and the team behind it are addressing not only really interesting problems in genomics, but are anticipating customer needs and solving problems proactively.” Said Bio-IT World Editor Allison Proffitt at the presentation of the award to Mark Kiel, founder and CSO, Genomenon.

“It’s quite an honor to be recognized as Best of Show at Bio-IT this year”, said Mike Klein, CEO of Genomenon. “This recognition belongs to our entire team, dedicated to putting the genomics information needed to diagnose & cure patients with cancer and rare diseases at the fingertips of doctors and

Fifth Eye, an Ann Arbor-based medical software startup spun out of technology developed at the University of Michigan, today announced that it has raised $9 million in new investment capital, bringing its total venture backing to date to $11.5 million.

The round was led by Arboretum Ventures and Cultivation Capital, with participation from Invest Michigan, U-M’s MINTS program, and a bevy of angel investors. Founder and CEO Jen Baird says Fifth Eye will use the new capital to complete clinical studies at several hospital systems as it initiates the FDA approval process in preparation for a commercial launch.

Fifth Eye’s software is designed to act as an early warning system to predict when a patient might be in imminent trouble, based on their electrocardiogram (ECG) data. When the heart overcompensates for other trouble in the body, the signs are subtle, Baird says, but they have detectable mathematical characteristics, which helps the company’s software to assess the patient’s condition.

The company’s technology alerts medical professionals to hemodynamic instability, which is when blood flow to vital organs decreases to levels that are insufficient to support normal functions, which Baird says is one of the most common causes of deterioration and death for critically ill or injured patients. Once alerted by Fifth Eye’s technology, doctors could take proactive measures to avoid adverse health events and improve patient outcomes—ideally shortening hospital stays and reducing healthcare costs in the